Valuing Internet companies: a DEA-based Multiple Valuation Approach

Abstract

The Internet industry has created a great deal of marvels over the past decade. Assessing Internet companies’ values provides an alternative tool to help make better investment decisions. This paper presents a hybrid of both DEA and multiple valuation methods to valuate Internet companies. Four tailored valuation methods were proposed and a sample of 52 firms was tested based on Price-to-Gross Margin ratio. With the focus on the estimation direction (overvalued/undervalued), verified with the real prices, an accuracy rate of approximately 70% on average has been obtained from these four methods. The proposed methods allow investors to have a more accurate estimation of the subject company's current and future stock prices. This implies that the research results could help investors when they are making long-term or short-term investments.